-- THE ARCHIVE --

UNITED STATES
Illicit CP - September 2007

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas, 1 September 2007

Officer charged in alleged spanking

By Melody McDonald

Murrah

FORT WORTH -- A Fort Worth police officer who was arrested
last week on accusations of spanking the rear of a woman he
caught engaging in sexual conduct in a car in Oakhurst Park was
charged with official oppression.

If convicted of that charge, a Class A misdemeanor, officer
Craig Murrah could be sentenced to up to one year in jail and a
$4,000 fine.

Prosecutor Kurt Stallings confirmed Thursday that Murrah had
been charged but said the case will also be presented to a grand
jury.

Police have said that about 1 a.m. June 22, Murrah found a
couple engaging in sexual conduct inside a vehicle at the park at
2300 Daisy Lane in north Fort Worth. The officer ordered the
couple out of the car and placed the 18-year-old woman, who was
nude from the waist down, in the back of his patrol car. At some
point during the investigation, Murrah is accused of spanked the
woman on the rear, police have said.

The woman said the officer let them go with a warning.

When the woman told her boyfriend what the officer had done,
he called 911. Police conducted an internal investigation and a
warrant was issued for Murrah's arrest.

Wes Ball, Murrah's defense attorney, said Thursday that they
will wait to see all the details, but he said they intend to
plead not guilty. He also pointed out that the couple, by their
own admission, were engaged in sexual conduct in public.

"They were violating the law," Ball said. "This
is a grave thing for [Murrah], his future and his career."

Authorities investigating paddling allegations against Judge Thomas

Authorities are investigating allegations that now-suspended
Mobile County Circuit Judge Herman Thomas periodically removed
prisoners from Mobile County Metro Jail and spanked them in a
room at the courthouse, according to courthouse sources involved
in the inquiry.

Once inside the room, according to the sources, the judge
would ask the young men to drop their pants and prepare to be
spanked with what they described as a wooden or fraternity-like
paddle.

These new allegations arise as Thomas prepares for an Oct. 29
ethics trial in Montgomery that could permanently remove him from
the bench.

When contacted by telephone Tuesday by the Press-Register and
asked about the alleged spanking episodes, Thomas simply said,
"This is news to me. I don't have any comment."

According to sources, between a half-dozen and a dozen young
men have shared their accounts with officials.

The Press-Register could not determine whether any of the
young men knew each other or knew of the others' allegations.

Judges, prosecutors and police officers are often favorite
targets of defendants and convicted criminals who make
accusations in order to try to get themselves out of legal
trouble.

At least one young man has alleged that as a prelude to the
paddling, Thomas told him that if he had been spanked when he was
a child, he would not have found himself in jail later, according
to one of the newspaper's sources.

Investigating officials were able to reconcile jail logs
noting when Thomas removed the young men from Metro Jail and when
he returned them to custody later, sources said.

Not all of the young men making the allegations were in jail
when they had their encounters with Thomas, according to the
sources. At least one of Thomas' accusers told authorities he was
out of Metro Jail when the judge summoned him to the courthouse
on a Sunday night.

In August, according to sources, a room matching descriptions
provided by some of the young men was located just off a corridor
that leads to the jury room connected to Thomas' courtroom.

Thomas' official chambers and offices can be reached through a
door behind his courtroom bench.

The Press-Register was shown the small room in late August.

When asked about it Tuesday by a reporter, Thomas had no
comment.

The room is about 6 feet by 8 feet, appearing better suited
for storage than for use as an office.

Some sections of the courthouse's sixth and eighth floors in
the north tower of Mobile Government Plaza were built in a layout
similar to Thomas' section. And some of the corresponding small
rooms in those other sections are used for storage, while others
sit empty.

Some judges on the circuit bench have said they were not aware
of these small rooms, and none said that the rooms in their own
sections, or anywhere else at the courthouse, were used as extra
offices.

But the small room in Thomas' section appeared to be an
office.

The walls were covered with framed pictures, awards and
certificates received by the judge.

Family pictures also sat in a tall, narrow bookcase that held
law books and other documents.

A huge desk dominated the room, and behind it was a well-worn
leather chair with a high back. Just to the right was an
adjustable secretary's chair, its seat cranked down low, about a
foot from the floor.

According to sources, sometime after Thomas came aboard as a
circuit judge, he changed the locks and occupied the room.

It was unclear how many others on Thomas' staff may have known
about it.

Thomas, on the circuit bench since 1999 and before that a
District Court judge beginning in 1995, became the subject of an
investigation by Alabama's Judicial Inquiry Commission last fall.

The first set of complaints against Thomas included
allegations that he helped his cousin, former school board member
David Thomas Jr., substitute a week-long criminal sentence in the
overcrowded Metro Jail for the less-crowded Prichard Jail.

After the change in jail venue was exposed, David Thomas was
forced by Circuit Judge Joseph "Rusty" Johnston to
spend another week in jail, this time at Metro.

Those complaints and others resulted in Judge Thomas'
suspension from the bench earlier this year.

A second wave of ethical questions against him appeared in the
summer -- bringing the number of complaints to 30. The later
allegations accused Thomas of usurping cases from his fellow
judges on the circuit bench and, in some cases, changing
sentences to less severe penalties.

TV news item, "Judge Accused Of Paddling Inmates" (1 minute 47 seconds), from WKRG-TV, Mobile-Pensacola, Alabama (5 September 2007). It follows up the above story with claims by the NAACP that Judge Thomas is the victim of a conspiracy and a witch-hunt by the District Attorney and others.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

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